Kenneth Duane Snelson was an American contemporary sculptor and photographer. His sculptural works, exemplified by Needle Tower, are composed of flexible and rigid components arranged according to the idea of 'tensegrity'. Snelson preferred the descriptive term floating compression.
Needle Tower II by Kenneth Snelson (1969) at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Netherlands
Needle Tower II, 1968 (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands)
B-Tree, 1981 (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland)
Avenue K, 1968 (Hannover, Germany)
Tensegrity, tensional integrity or floating compression is a structural principle based on a system of isolated components under compression inside a network of continuous tension, and arranged in such a way that the compressed members do not touch each other while the prestressed tensioned members delineate the system spatially.
The Skylon at the Festival of Britain, 1951
Largest tensegrity bridge in the world, Kurilpa Bridge – Brisbane
NASA's Super Ball Bot is an early prototype to land on another planet without an airbag, and then be mobile to explore. The tensegrity structure provides structural compliance absorbing landing impact forces and motion is applied by changing cable lengths, 2014.
Proto-Tensegrity Prism by Karl Ioganson, 1921
